DT talks about the two-time champion Alianza: “I feel that we contributed something to make that happen”

It will be a kind of revenge for Daniel Ahmad. He is a coach who lives soccer and bases his work on a lot of information. Criticized for his passage through the Peruvian Football Federation (FPF-minor divisions) and for 2020 with Alianza Lima, there are good comments towards him when it comes to players. He now leads Atlético Grau in a season where they are aiming for an international tournament.

—What was it that most attracted you to the Grau project for you to decide to return to Peru?

Yes, to come back I really needed a project that had passion, rich in structure, objectives. And Atlético Grau is in a very interesting moment of development. President Arturo Ríos together with his work team are planning an important Grau for the future and that was what interested us in coming.

—I imagined that what Atlético Grau did last season also had an influence…

Several things happened. As you say, first get to know the club. It is well managed, there is an atmosphere of great respect and very humane. There are objectives within the club to become an Independiente del Valle in the future and that is exciting, because there is a great work group. I was surprised by Grau, the growth and progress he has made. All of this led me to agree to come, since it is a project that excites us.

—They aim to be like Independiente del Valle… could you give us details?

Grau has a good scouting job that meant that the squad that was formed last tournament was not the result of chance, but rather the internal work of the club. Grau is acquiring land here in Piura where he seeks to develop a sports structure for professional and minor soccer. Today he has a place that is not his own, but he has two fields, one with irrigation. He has a medical team where there are three physiotherapists who work in the best way. Areas of nutrition, human development, and social assistance were created. He also has a press and marketing area. In summary, there are support areas that allow the squad, technical command and football to develop in the best way. In addition, we integrated a scouting area within the headquarters because it has an interesting infrastructure where the different areas of sports development of the club can be grouped. We are creating the technical secretariat. It is a club that is looking to develop sportingly and these are challenges that, apart from technical management, I am interested in helping with a grain of sand to be able to contribute to that development.

—Grau maintained the base of his squad and incorporated interesting names such as Milessi, Mora, Vivanco…

Atlético Grau had just made a good Clausura with an interesting player base, which is why the set-up was worked on as a team. Andrés Ríos, who is the Sports Manager, together with the team leader and I work daily on the preparation of the squad, we respect the first line of that good campaign they had. We added several players that in the analysis are going to do very well for the squad, especially players that I already knew, most of them with the selection process. That is not a minor issue because it is part of a training problem that exists in Peru. These players who have a selection process have a good formation and today we feel that they are players with a lot of potential to develop for personal growth and therefore growth of the team and of the institution itself.

—I imagine that with all that, the goal is to fight for the title or qualify for an international tournament?

Dreams are always the greatest and this team is what they are going to look for in each game, since football must be handled with great humility and false promises must not be made. The intention of this team is clearly to seek to win every game and dream of lifting the Cup, but, as I told you, one cannot make promises because football does not always make sense. But yes, one can talk about what the team’s intentions will be in each game they play.

—After his departure from the Technical Unit for Minors in the FPF there has been no continuity of work. Ernesto Arakaki was present and now José Guillermo Del Solar is taking over. How do you see this panorama in youth football with Chemo and what it can contribute to the Peruvian team?

I see Chemo as a very capable person. I have followed his work for a long time and it is a very serious job, very professional, he knows the local environment very well. I think he has the ability and knowledge of the environment to understand the changes that need to be made. In any case, there is something that is very clear and is visible to all, Peruvian soccer, as long as it does not have minor categories, but truly inferior ones, not invented in the regions, will not reach the goal. In each region, the academies have to work for the region’s professional club, promoting players, but for this to happen, the Peruvian Football Federation has to give a category to the professional soccer minors. How? Forcing them to have sub 13, sub 15, sub 17 and reserve. But in a tournament at the national level, where only the first and second clubs can play. In this way, a categorization of professional clubs will be made and all of football will work to build professional players. That way there will be a career line with a 13-year-old boy who lives in Piura who is going to go to Grau because he has the categories and plays against Alianza, Universitario, Cristal. That they have Licenses that really control and that the quality standards of the place where they train are met in each region. That there be job boards for technical command, physiotherapists and all that world of football work that we need for Licensing to be fulfilled.

—After the South American Sub 20, Chemo will be the team’s coach. How do you take that he is in charge of planning and also directing?

I think that the development and destiny of a country does not lie in the occupation of a single person. This is a team effort where all aspects of sports in minors are developed. In this case, Chemo can, from its ideas and vision, generate this development by having capable people, developing national youth tournaments for First and Second Division teams, generating License controls for the development of clubs in their respective regions, so that young people have a correct field of development, be it in infrastructure, in coaches, education. But this will not depend on Chemo, but on a multidisciplinary team that works hard from January to December.

League 1

—You make your debut with Alianza Lima, in Piura. I imagine that being local you feel the pressure to achieve a positive result?

It’s a very nice opening game because it’s a very important rival, it’s the last champion and as I was saying, if we want to have maximum objectives within the club, starting against a rival of these characteristics is very good, because it will allow us to demonstrate our evolution. We are going to demonstrate the value of our players, that we feel that we have an important squad of players with a winning mentality, brave who want to face these challenges to go find those objectives that I told you about, to consolidate Grau in sports this season 2023.

—Personally, do you see a rematch facing Alianza for what happened to him in 2020?

No. 2020 was a very difficult year for Alianza Lima. That year the Blue and White Fund took over the reins of the club, an institution that came with very little process in sports development. That was the mission for which they hired us and it was 20 days in November that we had to plunge into a sports debacle. I have the best memories of Alianza, because the year I was there I knew how to understand what a powerful institution, with so many fans and people, not only in Lima, throughout the country. It is an institution of respect, but it already needed a change. Having internal infrastructures and I feel like we worked hard for 11 months for that issue. Luckily, Alianza emerged champion in 2021 and became champion again in 2022. I think that we contributed something in those months that we worked on the sports development of the club for that to happen.

—In Atlético Grau, will you also worry a lot about the style of play or after what happened in Alianza has you become more pragmatic?

The Alianza thing, in personal analysis, was 20 days in which we played a game every three days. A worn outfit where the four foreigners had said goodbye to him. The Uruguayans left, the Venezuelan central defender had been injured. A totally decimated team. He ended up playing with three or four youth players. Regarding the style, football is one and it has the phase of duration and development and no team can skip the development of that phase. In the elaboration, he trusts that his team knows how to play at the start, with the long ball, knows how to have defensive balance, knows how to press, knows how to handle the ball standing still. All those issues that are in modern football.

—And how have you worked with Grau in these weeks of training?

The team has worked very well under Professor Daniel Pezo, who is a great professional. There was a great predisposition from the campus and that is why we feel very satisfied with the work we are doing within the campus. We are very excited, expectant, many dreams and we await the initial whistle of Alianza to begin to fulfill this dream.

—What were you doing after your last experience in Alianza Lima?

I was doing development in Canada in 2021. Always in soccer, one has to be updating. I was doing some courses at a Barcelona school on different football topics and it’s always nice to get training. One loves soccer and everything that refers to the world of soccer.

—Do you think the tailings of the Peruvian tournament will raise the level in this 2023?

Peru has an advantage that economically it has power through sponsors and that makes the player, for example the Argentine soccer player, see it as a good place, knowing more about how Argentina lives the problem at the country level and that makes it possible for it to reach Peru good players. This often enriches and helps spread the word, generating growth because it improves competition. But if we continue to reinforce this competition with internal development, Peruvian soccer can reach a very high level. We have to close those 360 ​​degrees by finishing creating an internal development that allows Peru to fight for what it can be, because it does not lack talent, it does not lack capable people, because there are very capable Peruvians, not only in terms of football, but also coaches, physical trainers, physiotherapists, soccer professionals, who need a good development structure to be able to insert themselves and show how capable they are.